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Better to know a few things which are good and necessary than many things which are useless and mediocre

Leo Tolstoy

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Leo Tolstoy
Age: 82 †
Born: 1828
Born: January 1
Died: 1910
Died: January 1
Diarist
Esperantist
Essayist
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Pedagogue
Philosopher
Playwright
Prosaist
Writer
Tolstoi
Tolstoy
Lev Nikolaevich
graf Tolstoĭ
Lev Nikolayevich
Count Tolstoy
Count Lev Tolstoy
Leo
graf Tolstoy
Lev
Count Tolstoy
Lev
graf Tolsztoj
Лев Николаевич
c граф Толстой
Lew
graf Tolstoi
Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy
Lev Tolstoy
Count Leo Tolstoy
Mediocre
Useless
Necessary
Better
Many
Good
Things

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If the thought ever comes to you that everything that you have thought about God is mistaken and that there is no God, do not be dismayed. It happens to many people. But do not think that the source of your unbelief is that there is no God.
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You say: I am not free. But I have raised and lowered my arm. Everyone understands that this illogical answer is an irrefutable proof of freedom.
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Happiness consists of living each day as if it were the first day of your honeymoon and the last day of your vacation.
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Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.
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Never did Christ utter a single word attesting to a personal resurrection and a life beyond the grave.
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He was right in saying that the only certain happiness in life is to live for others.
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Nowhere nor in anything, except in the assertion of the Church, can we find that God or Christ founded anything like what churchmen understand by the Church.
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He could not be mistaken. There were no other eyes like those in the world. There was only one creature in the world who could concentrate for him all the brightness and meaning of life. It was she. It was Kitty.
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Man survives earthquakes, epidemics, the horrors of disease, and all the agonies of the soul, but for all time his tormenting tragedy is, and will be, the tragedy of the bedroom.
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Many families remain for years in the same place, though both husband and wife are sick of it, simply because there is neither complete division nor agreement between them.
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The role of the disappointed lover of a maiden or of any single woman might be ridiculous but the role of a man who was pursuing a married woman, and who made it the purpose of his life at all cost to draw her into adultery, was one which had in it something beautiful and dignified and could never be ridiculous.
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Regard the society of women as a necessary unpleasantness of social life, and avoid it as much as possible.
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In vain do science and philosophy pose as the arbiters of the human mind, of which they are in fact only the servants. Religion has provided a conception of life, and science travels in the beaten path. Religion reveals the meaning of life, and science only applies this meaning to the course of circumstances.
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He knew she was there by the joy and terror that took possession of his heart [...] Everything was lit up by her. She was the smile that brightened everything around.
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All the stories and descriptions of that time without exception peak only of the patriotism, self-sacrifice, despair, grief, and heroism of the Russians. But in reality it was not like that...The majority of the people paid no attention to the general course of events but were influenced only by their immediate personal interests.
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Woman is generally so bad that the difference between a good and a bad woman scarcely exists.
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God cannot be understood by logical reasoning but only by submission.
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Music is the shorthand of emotion.
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Death destroys the body, as the scaffolding is destroyed after the building is up and finished. And he whose building is up rejoices at the destruction of the scaffolding and of the body.
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In order to understand, observe, deduce, man must first be conscious of himself as alive.
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